Transforming Local Governance From Thatcherism to New Labour

by Stoker, Gerry

• ISBN13: 9780333802489
• ISBN10: 0333802489
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-04
• Publisher: Red Globe Pr

Summary

Drawing on the author's unrivalled experience and expertise in both research and policy-making, this important new book provides a systematic assessment of the changing nature of local governance in Britain and a conceptual framework for understanding the new governance of localities. The author analyzes in detail what New Labour has been trying to do to local governance and management and assesses how and why it has achieved only a mixed record of change. The book concludes by providing a vision of good local governance and an assessment of future challenges for research and reform.

Author Biography

Gerry Stoker is Professor of Politics, University of Manchester.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Figures and Boxes	xi
Acknowledgements	xiii
Introduction	1	(1)
A context of change	1	(2)
The argument of the book	3	(6)
The Emerging System of Local Governance	9	(19)
Beyond New Management: the emergence of networked local governance	10	(5)
Networked community governance: the organizational and structural ingredients	15	(7)
Beyond elected local government	15	(1)
Beyond overhead representative democracy?	16	(2)
The rise of multi-level governance	18	(2)
The search for fiscal fudges and value for money	20	(2)
Towards new governing processes	22	(4)
Conclusions	26	(2)
The Legacy of the Conservatives: Governance by Default	28	(20)
A changed institutional framework: making new governance structures	29	(4)
A reorganized local government	29	(2)
A tight financial regime	31	(1)
The rise of local quangos	32	(1)
New Public Management	33	(2)
The regulation of public services	35	(3)
The impact of the Conservative reforms on services	38	(3)
The problems of the world of governance created by the Conservatives	41	(2)
The Conservatives' neglect of local politics	43	(2)
Ending local government: the Conservatives stand accused	45	(2)
Conclusions	47	(1)
New Labour: Embracing Local Governance?	48	(21)
The three projects of New Labour: beyond the rhetoric of modernization	49	(5)
New Labour's critique of elected local government	54	(4)
Labour's vision of local governance	58	(4)
The reform agenda	62	(6)
Conclusions	68	(1)
Understanding New Labour's Reform Strategy	69	(17)
The contribution of grid-group theory	70	(4)
Control freaks, partners or bookies? Characterizing New Labour's approach to central--local relations	74	(3)
The ingredients of New Labour's lottery reform strategy	77	(4)
The making of the reform strategy	81	(4)
Conclusions	85	(1)
Improving Service Delivery under New Labour	86	(22)
Best Value: a review of its style	87	(2)
The response of local authorities to the Best Value regime	89	(5)
The rise and rise of inspection	94	(2)
Labour's second-term agenda for service delivery	96	(3)
Following up Comprehensive Performance Assessment: lessons from enforceability analysis	99	(7)
Conclusions	106	(2)
Democratic Renewal: Getting People to Participate	108	(18)
Electoral reforms	110	(2)
What lies behind low turnout?	112	(2)
More participation and innovative forms of consultation	114	(7)
Can democracy be engineered? What difference does officially sponsored consultation make?	121	(4)
Conclusions	125	(1)
Promoting Local Political Leadership	126	(27)
The established system of political management and the reform proposals	132	(4)
The case for reform: leadership suited to the challenge of networked community governance	136	(3)
The case against reform	139	(6)
The interest and institutional bases of resistance to the mayoral model	145	(3)
New Labour's compromised implementation strategy	148	(3)
Conclusions	151	(2)
Partnership and Joining Up in a Era of Multi-Level Governance	153	(22)
Mapping New Labour's institutional framework for local and regional governance	154	(6)
The devolution programme	154	(4)
No bonfire of local quangos	158	(1)
The burgeoning world of partnership	159	(1)
New Labour's centralizing implementation strategy for joining up: first-term mistakes	160	(4)
New Labour's competing visions of effective multi-level governance	164	(5)
The networked community governance model	165	(1)
The constrained discretion model	166	(3)
Multi-level governance: which way for New Labour?	169	(4)
Conclusions	173	(2)
Local Finance: Coming to Terms with Governance?	175	(17)
Governance and local finance	176	(2)
Moving beyond the established debate: four criteria for a local finance system	178	(6)
Choices over local finance facing New Labour	184	(4)
Moving to new universalism	184	(2)
A new localist solution?	186	(2)
Strengths and weaknesses of the options	188	(1)
Conclusions	189	(3)
The Challenge of Governance	192	(23)
Making history in challenging circumstances	192	(9)
The interpenetration of multi-level governance	193	(3)
Decline in public trust	196	(4)
The presence of flawed institutional legacies	200	(1)
Learning the new processes of governance	201	(6)
Meeting the change challenge of organizational change	202	(2)
How to manage the mix: combining governance strategies and coping with failure	204	(3)
Confronting the structural contradictions of governance	207	(7)
The dilemmas of governance through networking	208	(5)
Managing through the state: tensions and difficulties	213	(1)
Conclusions	214	(1)
New Labour and Local Governance: Unfinished Business	215	(14)
New Labour's reform of local governance: an assessment	216	(3)
Searching for a new localism: the limits to steering centralism	219	(3)
Why new localism matters	222	(2)
Choosing New Localism	224	(5)
References	229	(12)
Index	241